Canada Ready To Drag Facebook To Court

Facebook is expected to line up a team of lawyers to defend itself following threats by Canadian government that the online giant will be dragged to court anytime for breaching privacy laws of the country.

Canada accuses Facebook of violating the country’s
privacy laws despite promising to adhere one year ago.

On Thursday, Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC), released its “troubling” findings after a yearlong probe into Facebook’s privacy practices.

The probe began in 2018 after it was revealed that
Cambridge Analytica had obtained data on millions of Facebook users without
their knowledge.

Cambridge Analytica – a political consulting group, had purchased the data from a researcher who had collected it through a third-party Facebook app called thisisyourdigitallife.

Privacy Commissioner, Daniel Therrien, said, “There is a stark contradiction between Facebook’s public promises to mend its ways on privacy and its refusal to address the serious problems we’ve identified — or even acknowledge that it broke the law — is extremely concerning.”

“We find it difficult to reconcile Facebook’s CEO’s recent public statements regarding Facebook’s desire to work with regulators towards a more privacy-focused platform, with Facebook’s refusal to submit to audits whereby our offices could confirm that Facebook is acting in an accountable way,” the report reads.

Therrien has also warned users to exercise caution when using Facebook.

“Canadians are at risk because the protections that Facebook offers are essentially empty,”

However, in response, Facebook spokesperson said in a statement that, “There’s no evidence that Canadians’ data was shared with Cambridge Analytica, and we’ve made dramatic improvements to our platform to protect people’s personal information.”

Facebook was required to submit regular OPC audits to ensure that the company had changed its ways.